


Lose Your Soul

by TonyStarkIsARobot



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alpha Derek, BAMF Stiles, M/M, Magic, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Stiles-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-19
Updated: 2016-01-19
Packaged: 2018-05-14 21:39:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5759791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TonyStarkIsARobot/pseuds/TonyStarkIsARobot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles isn't weak. Stiles isn't slow. </p>
<p>Stiles is deadly.</p>
<p>Stiles is a secret.</p>
<p>Stiles is the forest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lose Your Soul

**Author's Note:**

> Wooo! I found my mojo again! :D Heya folks, long time no see!
> 
> I'm kind of in love with this story. For full effect, listen to Lose Your Soul by Dead Man's Bones on repeat for this one.
> 
> Trust me.

Stiles isn’t a werewolf. Or a werecoyote. Or a banshee, or a hunter, or kistune. Stiles is _human_. Stiles is weak to all of those creatures and entities. 

That doesn’t mean he’s useless. Or defenseless. 

It means he’s Stiles. People always underestimate Stiles.

You want him to run through Beacon Hills Preserve in the middle of the night, with zero visibility (thank you fog, you asshole), with something big and scary chasing him?

He knows how to run faster than Usain Bolt when his life depends on it. He can do it almost silently. _Gracefully_ , even. He’s good at it. He knows the Preserve like his own backyard. What roots are where, which trees lead out and which lead in, which rocks are a little looser than the rest…. he could live there if he wanted to.

Right now though, he just wanted to live.

“Come out, come out little rabbit,” someone taunted.

“We won’t hurt you little bunny. Not a single hair on your cute little head,” a female voice purred.

To Stiles, they sound like echoes. Whispers in the dark. Whispers that can’t quite catch up to him. Something strikes a tree right next to his face, splintering the wood on the red fir. Bark strikes his face, slicing as it goes. 

He barely notices. The sting hardly touches his nerves. He just has to keep _running_. 

Stiles doesn’t even know where he’s headed. He’s sure someone’s noticed he’s missing by now. Someone had to have seen him take off into the woods while the rest of the pack wrestled each other in some weird competition for dominance. He wasn’t running from them. He wasn’t running from anything.

This was Stiles’ training. This was his display of dominance. He’d be fast. Silent. A ghost. He’d be everyone’s worst fear. The white tattoos hidden across his shoulders, down his spine, around his ribcage don’t make him silent. They don’t make him fast. That’s all him.

No, they made him a weapon. They made him powerful. They made him a _secret_.  
Is he afraid, being chased by God knows what?

_Yes._

But he can use fear. He can use adrenaline. He can use the Earth under his feet, the trees towering all around him. He can feel them. He can _find_ them. 

One of the things behind him banks left. The other banks right. They want to flank him. They want to corner him.

A teeny, tiny little smirk peeks out under the moonlight, cuts through the fog. There’s no one here to watch Stiles. It’s just him and these things. There’s no one here to judge him. To catch his secret. To _protect_ him. Stiles can let loose. He can unleash himself. He can be _free_. 

Stiles lets them corner him. There’s a strong oak tree next to him. Two white pines stand between him and his would-be assailants. He could change direction - run back the way they came. But there’s no fun in that. There’s no release. 

The tattoos begin to crawl across his skin, each one glowing a bright, milky white. They slither under his arms, across his chest, down his legs, never stopping. Never peaking out from under his clothes. They stay hidden and bright. The moonlight feeds them. He’s turned himself into the same kind of thing as his friends - useful all month long but at his best when the moon is bright. Deaton helped, of course. Gave him some books, some trinkets, some _ink_. 

Stiles is a _savage_.

The two things approach him, all fangs and claws and wild hair. They aren’t werewolves, no. They’re something older. Something more powerful. Stiles doesn’t know if there’s a word for them. He doesn’t know if he wants to find their names. He could. It wouldn’t be hard. He’d just have to listen hard enough. Names are power. But names are cheating. He won’t have any fun with just a name. He’d rather show off a bit. Release some pent up energy.

So he looks scared. His heart rate rises. His eyes get just a little wider. His bottom lip quivers. He backs up, pretends to stumble. They laugh, the male and female. They think he’s weak. They think he’s by himself. They think he’s helpless.

( _He’ll burn their hearts right out of their chests without laying a hand on them_.)

They grab him. Yank him up. The females nails dig into his throat. They _pinch_. 

“We caught you Peter Cottontail. Why are you in Mister McGregor’s garden so late at night? Don’t you know there are _cats_ here?” Stiles gives his patented smart-ass smirk. He wants the male to hit him.

“Nah. But I did hear there are pussies.”

Stiles curls in around his core. The male sucker punched him. The females grin turns deadly, hand tightening. Any tighter and she’ll draw blood. Any tighter and Stiles will make her beg before he eviscerates her.

Stiles doesn't let it get that far, though. The punch was all he needed. The tattoos snake out, winding down to his wrists one at a time. A rune here, a word in gaelic there, a pictogram every now and again. His honey eyes become molten copper. The irises practically liquify into a pure pool of liquid fire. 

His skin is the moon.

His eyes are the sun.

He is _danger_.

He sees it in the male first. His pupils shrink. He begins to sweat. He smells like fear. He is afraid. He doesn’t want to die.

The female scoffs. She amplifies her arrogance to mask the smell of uncertain terror. She doesn’t know if she should be afraid. (But she _is_.)

A strip of bark peels from the oak tree. It bends, winds, twirls itself off the trunk. With a soft, cool touch, it wraps itself around the female’s wrist. Something alive shouldn’t be so cold, she thinks. 

Then she feels the fire.

The cracks and crevices in the bark illuminate. That molten copper floods every channel in the bark. It desiccates her skin. She watches her skin wither, wrinkle, and die. The tree is taking her moisture. It’s draining her life. She opens her mouth to scream, but she can’t find sound. 

The whole forest is silent. Stiles has control of that, too. No one will hear them. No one will feel them. He is life. He is death. He is the forest.

The bark snaps. She releases Stiles. He glides back to the ground. 

The male tries to run. That isn’t a smart idea. 

A root catches him. The fog slides onto him. Suddenly it isn’t so dewy. It’s solid. It’s _ice_. It’s ice and it’s holding him, burning him everywhere it touches. 

“We just want Derek!” he whimpers. He’s trying to save himself. He thinks they have leverage over him. They think Stiles is afraid of _them_. 

The female is on the ground cradling her hand. She’s sobbing, her body rocking itself in a vain attempt at comfort. It’s too distressed by the lack of sound. 

The roots of the old oak tree slide up from the ground, silent and sturdy as they wrap her in a loving embrace. 

Then, without a word, without a sound, she disappears.

Stiles can feel it. The oak taking what it wants from her. The _water_. Stiles can feel the moment her body is reduced to ash. One day, a new oak will spring up twenty feet from this one. It’ll be a strong, healthy tree. It’ll be her tree.

The fog doesn’t need water. It’s very essence is _moisture_. But it does need heat. It wants so badly to become rain. To become a part of the forest.

Stiles gives the fog permission. 

The male freezes.

The fog takes every last degree of heat from his supernatural being. Then, in a flash, he’s gone too. The fog has converted his being into energy - into heat. 

It begins to rain.

The forest sings. Hearty, high-pitched, eclectic. It’s a strong song. It’s melodic in its chaos of soprano crescendos and baritone refrains.

Stiles takes care of the forest. Of the trees, the air, the animals, the flowers… Stiles _is_ the forest. 

Stiles takes a deep breath. He gathers himself. His tattoos slowly slide back to where they came from, looking like little more than pale, thin scars marring his torso in delicate patterns. His eyes solidify, the sun once again being hidden by the clouds. 

The moon glows just a bit brighter, singing to him in its own ethereal way. Stiles can hear its song too, it’s just a little further away. A light, effervescent kiss of a tune. It sounds like the wind.

His tattoos still. His eyes close.

He’s Stiles. An 18 year-old kid from Beacon Hills. Son of the sheriff. Packmate.

He’s loud. He’s clumsy. He’s awkward. He’s smart. He’s sarcastic.

He’s more dangerous than anyone will ever know.

As he heads back to the Hale house in all its decrepit glory, the trees thin in front of him. He hasn’t expanded this section of forest yet. He prefers to work from the center out. His grove is strong now. It’ll soon breathe new life into the Preserve. Maybe he should start expanding.

Next time.

For now it’s time to tell his pack he went for a run, got a little lost, and took a bit of a fall.

Derek gives him a look.

Derek knows.

(He doesn’t know it all, though.)

Derek’s curious.

Stiles winks.

Derek nods.

He can feel it too.

The forest is happy.


End file.
